30 Years in This Profession, and I Still Feel Total Joy in Gifting Students When I Can, Especially with an Autographed Book

I have a student this year who arrived from Albania and identifies as a Montenegrin Muslim. She does not wear a hijab, has never seen girls like her represented in books taught in school, and has naturally used my YA Literature course as a deep-dive into Islamic representation of girls in the books she's selected. One of the books she read early in the semester was Hena Khan's We Are Big Time, a graphic novel based on an all Muslim basketball team that tells girls to DREAM BIG. 

You can imagine my fortune when I was at dinner with Hena Khan at the Penguin Random House author dinner, where she autographed a copy of the book to my student. Aliana borrowed mine, and now she has one, with a signature, for her. In a ZOOM conference later that night Aliana told me she'd never received such a gift and felt so honored that I was thinking of her and brave enough to approach the author. I could only respond that I was thrilled to see her take an approach to the class that is also teaching me. I told her she should dig deep into her own story to argue for why such stories matter to adolescent readers.

I hosted class asynchronously so I'd have time to conference with all the students in smaller groups. They watched 'the lecture' with short assignments, while I met to offer advice on the work they plan to turn in for the final. I love this, because Snap Chat affords me the opportunity to cut into my lectures with varying characters - this week, all from Psy-Fi and Fantasy characters, including a human kushball that could speak. 

I'm heading into this short holiday break with tremendous pride for the originality of all the projects and the joy that reading YA texts has brought them. But for today, I need to brine a turkey, prepare the tables, clean the house (after destroying it with putting Thanksgiving bouquets into vases (the leaves and pedals go everywhere). 

Tunga, too, is planning a break on this day as he awaits Alyssa's arrival this afternoon. I'm always surprised, and thrilled, when I roll back from a conference and am still able to do a decent job while teaching. For the next few days, however, I can take my mind off grading and planning to enjoy company and the many reasons I'm thankful...including hosting another YA course at the University.

I can't believe it is already almost December again. Phew.